Tenzin Tethong


Tethong Tenzin Namgyal is a Tibetan politician and a former Prime Minister of Central Tibetan Administration.

Naming practice

Traditionally, ordinary Tibetan people carry a first personal name and may or may not carry a second personal name, but does have a family name which is known as Tethong. Tenzin Namgyal Tethong is a special case where he is of aristocratic descent from the area called Tashi Thongmon, which is abbreviated as Te-Thong. When a person carries a family name, it should come in the very beginning. When the names are translated into English, they have adopted European grammatical practice of placing the family name at the end.

Early life

Tenzin Tethong started his exile life when he accompanied his family to Mussoorie in 1959 where the Dalai Lama, months after his arrival from Tibet, had started a school. His father was a teacher, and because of a shortage of anyone with knowledge of languages other than Tibetan, Tenzin Tethong and his older brother helped out in many ways. In 1960 when the first children from the road camps and border areas came to Mussoorie he was a part-time English teacher for young children his age and also their fellow student in the next Tibetan class.
The following year he went to Shimla where his father was appointed the Principal of the second Tibetan refugee school. In 1962 his family moved back to Darjeeling where he completed his high school education at Mt. Hermon School graduating with a First Division as a Science Student.

Public Service career

Tenzin N Tethong began his public service career in 1967.
He also worked actively with Stanford scientists and scholars to organize two visits by the Dalai Lama which became important dialogues between Buddhism and Science. These dialogues and subsequent conferences resulted in the establishment of CCARE, Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. These efforts further the work of the Dalai Lama who has been encouraged scientists to work closely with Buddhist experts and practitioners whose knowledge of the mind and consciousness may have valuable contributions to make to science and society. Tethong is a member of the Executive Committee of CCARE along with Geshe Thupten JInpa, another important member who visits Stanford regularly.
The DLF started with an initial study guide of "Ethics for the New Millennium" which has been translated into French, Chinese, Portuguese, German, Spanish, Japanese and Hebrew and it has resulted in hundreds of Study Circles all over the world. The guide has also been downloaded over 30,000 times. Other online courses and educational materials related to peace are available at the foundation website.
The Dalai Lama Foundation also works to develop close relations with other organizations that are engaged in the Dalai Lama's work for peace in the world, and collaborates with a number of organizations bearing the Dalai Lama's name; The Foundation for Universal Responsibility of the Dalai Lama in New Delhi, The Dalai Lama Center for Peace Education in Vancouver, Canada, and The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.

Current roles

Currently, Tenzin Tethong, a Distinguished Fellow at the Tibetan Studies Initiative, Stanford University is the President of the Dalai Lama Foundation, and Board Chair of the Committee of 100 for Tibet. In addition to serving as an advisor to the local Tibetan Community Center project, he is co-founder of the Missing Peace art exhibit and recently launched "Tibet in Exile-Fifty Years", an online documentation effort to commemorate the last fifty years in exile of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan people.